Yikes! It's been a year since I last posted to this thread! I was hoping to get the next release out this month but life keeps getting in the way. I'm looking at February or March now. So I thought I should post a quick update so you know this project is still making progress. Updates that I have made include:

Here is a tidbit about the nose doors. It is the response I got from Paul Hawkins when I inquired about the nose door operation. Paul was the last mechanic to maintain an operational Freighter, for Hawkair, and maintained our Cessna 182 as well

20 seconds would be about right to crank the nose doors open. Depends how fast one turns the handle ! (please dont ask how many turns) Opening the doors after the latches were undone was usually done by placing one foot up on one of the 45 degree stays. Put your back against the other one and push being careful not to fall out. Once the doors were moving they would continue to open on their own so one had to move briskly over to grab the vertical drive shaft connected to the winding handle gear box. By squeezing the drive shaft the doors opening speed could be slowed so the chain mechanism stops would not smash into the airframe stops. On C-FTPA when with Safe Air the engineers had fitted a piece of leather around the shaft to protect pilots soft hands or even gloves ! Closing the doors could be done by one person pushing on one door from out side. They would close with ease with out slamming together. The unwritten rule after doing that was to immediately go inside and secure the latches.

The nose doors never gave any trouble. They were well designed and built Bristol style!

Aircraft: Bristol Freighter Mk.31, Canadair CL-41 Tutor

Learn from the mistakes of others, only in FlightGear will you live long enough to make them all yourself.

The next release, near the end of 2018 probably, will include a full exterior texture mapping and livery menu support. Sorry for not supporting your use of an older release, but the use of geometry objects dramatically simplifies animations and is too mush to resist.

Owen.

Aircraft: Bristol Freighter Mk.31, Canadair CL-41 Tutor

Learn from the mistakes of others, only in FlightGear will you live long enough to make them all yourself.